Why we do it,
by rouge25
Summary: My OC, from my previous fic gift imperiled thinks about why kids join the safety patrol. Fic better than summary trust me : its pretty deep. Not in the mood to summarize.


**Hi guys! It's been a while since I posted up a fan fic but I finally got around to it! I kind of got the inspiration after reading that fic where Fillmore think about what the badge means and this is my version of why the safety patrollers to their job. Enjoy!!**

**p.s If some things look familiar to some other stories, like the part where Fillmore and Ingrid like to meet at the stop sign (not sure if this is canon or not but its in quite in a lotta fics). I got those ideas from some of the other fics, so they are property of their respective authors.**

**Owh, yea I don't own Fillmore and/or Disney capiche?**

-Dedicated to **everyone**, who _**protects, serves and makes a difference in this world even though one kid, one case or one whatever at a time**_**. God Bless you all**

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Normally being waked by my alarm up to see my clock reading 10:00 AM would send me into a panic to get to school on time, but not this day. Covering up a yawn, I slowly got out of bed and shut off my alarm. "Now why was it okay again to wake up an hour after class started?" I thought as I drowsily walked over to my bathroom "Oh yea... Last night…"

"FREEZE!!! X-Middle school safety patrol!!" Shouted Fillmore as he brandished his badge at the perps they all looked to see that they were surrounded to all sides by safety patrollers. Predictably none of them froze, the chase started.

"Now, why are we doing this again?" I thought as I took off chasing two of them with Jade and O'Farrell. It was 10:00 PM, definitely no time to still be awake if you got school tomorrow and definitely not time to be running around campus chasing perps, but not this time. Definitely not when these perps are just stole the new pear 2007's. A week ago, we got a tip that somebody is planning to lift all of the new computers and ship them off to Ohio. We get prank tips like that all the time; one time we even got one saying that Principal Folsom is an alien in disguise. We usually just ignore them, but not this time. Not when we get them Oracle, our best informant, she's been giving us info even before I joined the force and even up till now none of them ever missed a mark. Expectedly Folsom wasn't happy. She gave us everything we needed, platinum hall passes, permission to skip class to investigate, the works everything. And we used it, oh heck yea we did (but not the purpose you think we did, really! We investigated!). And it paid off, everyone on the squad had to call in every favor he/she had to gather the intel but we got it at last, intel. Exactly when and where the perps are going to be doing the lift, not quite as detailed as we would have want it thought. But it was more than enough to call in the entire safety patrol for a totally official (but under wraps) all night stake out.

By now the head sets were full of sounds, plenty of patrollers talking, cursing, yelling but my name snapped me out ."Nick you read me?" squawked my head set snapping me out, I put my hand up to it so I could hear better all the while still running after the perps.

"I read you Ingrid, what's up" I panted out as I jumped over a small puddle and climbed up a walkway, Jade and O'Farrell well in step with me. Those perps run pretty fast considering they're carrying CPU's over their backs.

"We got another one heading your way, think you can handle him?" said Ingrid's cool voice coming from my ear, she hardly seemed tired.

"We got it, send him over." I replied as I jumped off and landed on the perps back, he was completely stunned I quickly put cuffs on him and held him down. "Go after the others!" I shouted to Jade and O'Farrell "I got this guy!"

"Guys we have five more breaking off, they're all over the place!" Yelled a voice I didn't recognize

"Dog! Some of em ran it for east campus! We have anyone over there?!" Fillmore's voice yelled out, this is gonna be a looong night"

It took three hours for us to round every single one of those 20 perps, but we did it at last. Compared to the 45 officers we had, it might seem that we kinda went over the top. But with intel still sketchy on where the perps are gonna run, we needed everyone we could get and Folsom didn't want to take the chance. She met us by the way, as we gave the perps to the police, didn't expect she'd be there. She just smiled and said "Be late tomorrow, but meeting 3 o'clock sharp!" And with that she got in her car and left.

I smiled recalling last night's events as I took a shower, good thing we could be late. Every muscle I had is hurting, even ones I didn't know existed! It had been a seriously long night. I rinsed off, dried myself off and put on my turtle neck, blue shirt, cargo pants and… my sash. I still had the same one, this one had been ever since I joined the patrol. I was lucky that it still held, Fillmore's sash broke a couple of weeks ago in the 5 alarm chili and mine is a lot older! It's kind of a personal thing to me.

I ran downstairs to see an empty house, everyone left already, dad to work, mom doing some shopping and my little brother already at school. I poured myself some milk and cereal and started eating. I must be in a daze, the milk went all over the place. I remember what it was like when I got home last night, practically dragging my feet. My mum and dad are still up waiting for me, they knew what I was doing and they understood but they couldn't help saying that schools shouldn't let 7 graders pull an all-nighter. I had my share of all nighter stake outs, a bit more than others with Fillmore and Ingrid on my team. My mum and dad understand but they couldn't help asking occasionally why I joined up the patrol. I was lucky they're not on my back as hard as others were; joining the safety patrol wasn't looked up as a "worthwhile" club to join. I get it a lot and I know some of the others too, members of their family saying they should join something "worthwhile". Some of the kids we get on the patrol are really smart, smart enough to join the math club or even the future MBA club, but they joined the safety patrol and not everyone seems to understand their decision.

Like Ingrid for instance, the smartest kid in school. Everyone thinks that she should join all the advanced clubs or even run as student liason of education with the faculty! I've heard some teachers say to her "Why don't you do something worthwhile Ingrid? Why not join the pre pre med club? Or the protactor club?"

There's Jade, our best hacker. Ever since me and the gang turned her from being a delinquent hacker, she's had a lotta offers for sponsorship to the computer club even to head tech! 

And even O'Farrell gets it a lot! Even though he's…. Y'know… O'Farrel, Danny takes a decent picture. More than decent even, he told me that Mr. Dela Costa head of the year book committee offered him a spot on the year book committee as vice head photographer!

And they're not the only ones. And what bothers me, is that sometimes when I'm in a daze or a thinking mood I sometimes think to myself, why did I join the patrol?

Right at this moment some of the milk dripped off my spoon as I raised it to my mouth. Not wanting to change again I grabbed a tissue quick to wipe it off. Just as I reached down to clean it, I stopped abruptly seeing what it hit, my sash…

It made me remember the first time my family saw me with my sash. It was a bright Friday afternoon, the day when I and Wayne just got in the patrol. Coincidentally I had a family gathering over at my grandma's house that same day, not wanting to go home first I went there straight after with my sash securely over on my shoulder. As I closed the door and ran in saying hi to everyone they all stopped talking seeing it. My mum and dad went over to me right away, congratulated me and gave me a hug. The rest finally realizing it was a safety patroller sash went over to do the same… Not everyone saw it my way though… Five minutes after things got back to normal, my great uncle Ronald grabbed me around the shoulder and boomed out right on my ear "What's with all this safety patrol business huh? Why Nicky… If you want to make a difference in your school join the student council! He said finishing off with a shining open mouthed grin. "Not only that it does something for your future and its fun too! Just look at me! I ran for student council and won! Ohhh you should have seen the changes I made on that school of mine. " He said starting to babble off about how he made the cafeteria supply ice cream and how he revolutionized the one/two way hallway system for efficiency and I being still held firmly by his arm, could only sit through it and pretend to be listening.

After what seemed like an hour, he finally let me go but not before saying some more words of "wisdom" "Believe me Nicky, one more or less safety patroller won't make much of a difference! So you'll help a kid or two find a lost retainer, or nab delinquents, or nab kids who make off with other people's lunchbox, but in the end no one remembers you my boy! You're just that kid who wears a sash runs around chasing people and finding lost retainers and just that!" He gave my sash a quick tug as if to reinforce his point. "If you want to make a difference, look for something worthwhile something that people will remember you for!" I could only gave him a wan smile, he seemed to not see I was kind of forcing it though as he quickly ran off to talk to someone else. I couldn't move from that spot for a while. At the beginning I didn't really care what he said, I'm sticking to it but then when he started on his final rant it kind of hit me… It probably was pretty true.

Even till morning, the first time I entered the office I was kind of in a daze. Good thing Vallejo noticed it though, he quickly guessed what happened and gave me a good talking to. Vallejo might be a bit of a bear most of the times but at the moment, I had no idea that he could give such a good pep talk. I've always remembered what he said to me

_Flashback _Vallejo's office,  
he was walking around and I was sitting on the chair.

"Look nick sooner or later every safety patrol is going to get some flak for joining the force, maybe its that perp you just collared or someone who doesn't think that it all makes a difference." He said as he turned around to face me and his face softened "It's too bad for you that you got it sooner than later, a few hours after you got your badge even!" He came over and placed his hands on my shoulders "Look you'll get out of this, believe me everyone had their share of being discouraged. Its just that not everyone thinks that being a safety patroller makes much of a difference, but believe me you'll get out it" With that he smiled and held the door open for me as I walked out "Just wait till you get your first bust" He said grinning "And you'll get the picture"

_End Flashback_

"He was right though" I thought back grinning in memory of my first bust; it was mine and Wayne's first case. A serial project napper had been going wild stealing a lot of projects, some of them A+ material a lot of kids put their hearts into making them. The looks on their faces when we gave their project back to them… it was… unreal… I can't really describe it… Kind of like when you just scored a winning goal in the championships or the finals but its different….. It's the feeling that you know that you did the right thing by them. When we walked back to the office with the perp, Vallejo was waiting for us and he didn't need me to tell him that he was right. And no matter how many cases I've busted it's always the same, you just got the feeling that you did something right for the world. I finished off my cereal quick, by that time it was already 10:45 time sure flew. I promised Fillmore and Ingrid to meet them at the stop sign on the way to school at 11:00. Not wanting to lose any more time I quickly ran up brushed my teeth, picked up my stuff. I was almost to the door when I found I didn't have my wallet "Owh cmon" I thought as I rushed back up to get it. I gave it a quick flip to make sure I've got everything, I grinned when I saw my badge and the safety patrol motto etched at the bottom "To Protect and Serve".

"That's right" I thought to myself as I walked down the road. It doesn't matter that no one will remember you for making huge changes to the school or get in the eXaminer everyday, it just doesn't matter. It's about the kids that you help, that you helped find their way when they're lost, or helped them with their problems whether it be a lost retainer or that their project just got shredded. Even though the entire school may not know about what you've done, it doesn't matter. It's about knowing that you just made the world a better place even if only for a kid or two at a time, it's about knowing that you did something good for the world. And that's why people join the safety patrol, I thought leaning against the sign waiting for the others. That's all there is to it.

"Looks like it's gonna be good day today" I mumbled to myself as I watched the clouds roll by. And in a world that's as hectic as ours, wouldn't it be good if somewhere within all that you made the world better for someone else even though one problem at a time? And that's why I joined the patrol, to make a difference even though one case at a time. It still is a difference.

So whaddaya think? R&R please!

Thanx for reading everyone!! –Rouge25


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